Alvin Trivelpiece suggests
to ORNL employees some ways of defending the Laboratory
against internal and external threats to its continued
existence.Photograph by Curtis Boles.

Editor's note: ORNL Director Alvin W. Trivelpiece delivered
his annual State of the Laboratory address to employees and
visitors on June 12, 1997, in Eugene P. Wigner Auditorium, Oak
Ridge National Laboratory.

In my State of the Laboratory address last year,
I didn't talk about the scientific, technical, and managerial accomplishments of the preceding year.

I didn't make any predictions about what
might happen in the forthcoming year. I am glad that I
didn't, because I would have been wrong again. To avoid
being wrong next year, I am not going to make any
foolish predictions this year either.

In an ideal world, our Showcase Lectures should
keep you up to date on many of the scientific and
technical accomplishments inside the Laboratory. Our
Distinguished Lecture series should provide some thought-provoking
challenges for you to consider. Our new
publication, Ridgelines, should keep you up to date on changes
in management structure and personnel, both here and
at Energy Systems. Our World Wide Web pages, such
as the ORNL Review, now contain a
great deal of information about what is going on around
here. But this is not an ideal world. I know as well as you
that these sources of information don't provide the depth
of communication that we should have. This talk will not cure
our communication problem. Even so, I hope that what I do say will remind you
of the circumstances in which we find ourselves and that my remarks might
suggest some things that you might do to improve our situation.

Last year I organized my remarks around three themes: "The Way We
Were," "The Way We Are," and "The Way We Need To Be." In commenting on the
way we need to be, I listed ten items that I feel are imperative to our
long-term survival as a national laboratory. I will not repeat them here today. I hope that
you remember them in spirit if not in detail. They were published in
Lab Notes and the ORNL Review, and are still listed on our
Web server. It is interesting to me that, since
last year's talk, no one has said that any of the items on my list of imperatives
were unrealistic or inappropriate. In preparing for my remarks today, I reviewed
that list. In light of many things that have happened this last year, I believe that
a couple of items need to be added to that list.

We must collectively and aggressively defend ORNL against those forces that
would seek to diminish or destroy it.

First, we must collectively and aggressively defend Oak Ridge
National Laboratory against those forces that would seek to diminish or destroy it.
Second, we must become politically more sophisticated and active on a
national, state, and local level.

Need To Defend
Against Threats

In some sense, these thoughts are embedded in the list that I cited
last year, but the emphasis is quite different. The shift in emphasis is
from passive to active. To be sure, we must continue to be excellent
scientists, engineers, managers, crafts workers, and support staff. But unfortunately,
it has become progressively clearer that such characteristics, while
still necessary, are never sufficient.

A review of the history of ORNL reveals that over the years it has
faced several serious threats that might have caused its demise as a great
research and development institution. Effective
defensive efforts, a little offense, and
a little luck have prevented that outcome. If you doubt this, I
suggest that you read Alvin Weinberg's book, The First Nuclear Era: The Life
and Times of a Technological Fixer.

Most of the past threats against the Lab were the result of outside
forces. In some cases these were simple matters of regional rivalry
or competition. Today, the threats to the continued existence of ORNL are
as strong as they ever were. To be sure, these threats are more subtle
and insidious, and they are not all external, but these threats are real. There
are many ways to destroy or diminish a great institution like ORNL. Loss of
a sense of purpose, or loss of dedication to uncompromising standards
of
excellenceeither is a sure way to decay slowly over time so
that recovery is not possible. Inattention to small and seemingly
innocuous changes that have long-term consequences can lead to
irreversible circumstances. (Speaking of slow decay reminds me I need to jog a
little more frequently.)

Linda Horton makes a point about ORNL's materials research to U.S. Senators Pete Domenici (right)
of New Mexico and Bill Frist of Tennessee. Photo by Jim Richmond.

The belief that we are an island and that events beyond our shores have
no influence on us is foolish. In some cases, threats come from
the unintended consequences of otherwise well-intentioned acts. For
example, while I was director of the Office of Energy Research, I established
a guideline of about 20% for the level of work-for-others activities at the
labs. My intention was to give the lab
directors the ability to prevent inappropriate work from
dominating proper lab activities. I had no
intention that it should become a control point for use by federal employees
to regulate laboratory functions. What is worse, it didn't even prevent
excessive levels of inappropriate work, as I had hoped. Silly me. I didn't even solve
the original problem. We still do sometimes take in work that is not consistent
with the functions and missions of a national laboratory. We need to find a better
way to deal with this issue.

Need for a Plan

To fend off these threats, we need a strategic plan that does not merely
seek to perpetuate the status quo. Rather, we need a plan that defines a
challenging future, one that stretches us to
perform in a manner consistent with our heritage and traditions. We should
not allow ORNL to expire from creeping mediocrity or a self-inflicted,
bungling bureaucracy. Developing such a plan is no easy matter. We have
developed several plans in the past and we will continue to develop them in the
future, as well. They haven't been easy to carry out. The problem is that in
our environment, such plans cannot be more than a near-term guideline.
The Advanced Neutron Source was a key element in more than one of
our strategic plans. We had to adjust our planning to accommodate the
reality that it was not going to be built. This doesn't mean that we should
stop planning but, rather, that we have to have realistic expectations about
what strategic plans can accomplish as tools.

Other threats to our continued existence come from
the increased competition for shrinking federal support
for research and development.

Ernie Moniz, then of the White House's Office of Science
and Technology Policy and now DOE's Undersecretary of Energy, was
a major participant in the December 1996 dedication of
ORNL's Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility.
Photograph by Curtis Boles.

Other threats to our continued existence come from the
increased competition for shrinking federal support for research and
development. This is, in part, a result of the end
of the Cold War. In addition, each congressional session has
spawned proposals to abolish the Department of Energy, to establish the equivalent
of base-closing commissions for the national labs, to change lab missions
in ways that would gut the excellence of the labs, and to transfer some of
the labs to other agencies. None of these
threats are easy to deal with, but
they are understandable, and they are out in the open. The debate that they
have generated is probably healthy, even though it makes us a
bit uncomfortable. We should not be exempted from the debate on how
to perform our jobs better and at less cost to the taxpayer. In fact, we
should welcome such debateif we truly believe that we can compete
against anyone in the world in certain areas of basic and applied research
and development.

Some of the threats to our existence come from our own failure to explain to the
public what we do here and why it is important to our region and nation.

Need To Communicate
Value of Our Work

Some of the threats to our existence come from our own failure to
explain to the public what we do here and why it is important to the economic
well-being of this region and our nation. Remember, the Cold War is over,
and we have no inherent right to expect the taxpayers to support us. We must
earn their support by making sure that they
perceive that the work we do here
is valuable to them. This is not easy, and I do not want to leave you with
the impression that an occasional talk at a service club, or even a
Community Day, will fix this. But such events do
help, and it is important for you to
get involved in such activities.

Some of the threats come from proposals to locate activities at
ORNL that are not appropriate for this national laboratory. Agreeing to
such
proposals is difficult to resist,
because in some cases it might lead to the short-term gain of a few jobs, but
in the long run it would severely diminish the functionality of the Lab or
its potential to seize future opportunities of great significance.

Some of the threats to us come from our own lack of
political sophistication. The word "political"
is the one with a small "p." It means understanding the process by
which government programs get created. It also means understanding
the relationship between various political entities that have influence over
our well-being. I know, from various ORNL leadership development
courses that I have been involved in over the past eight years, that too many of
you don't have a clue about where our funding comes from or how we get
it. This is not acceptable.

We must become politically more sophisticated and
active on a national, state, and local level.

More of you need to have a better understanding of the process, even
if you do not directly receive or compete for the money. You need to
better understand some of the debates and issues of our times, because they
do influence what we do. I know that many of you are raising families
or work long hours here, and you correctly ask, "How do I find the
time to do more?" I don't know. But let me remind you that surveys to
identify national priorities consistently fail to mention science and technology.
This is in spite of the fact that science and technology are the engines of
our economy. So it might be appropriate to find a little time to tell your friends
or neighbors what we do and why ORNL is important to them, and to our
nation. Remember, the national lab that you save might be your own.

Remember, the national lab that you save might be your own.

Defending ourselves against any of these threats is not straightforward
or simple, and in some cases it may not even be possible. But in the words
of Dylan Thomas: "Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should
burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
We should not go gentle into that good night. We are not at the end of
our days. But, we do need to become more aggressive in our own defense.

Reengineering as
a Defense

Our first line of active defense is the reengineering effort that we
have undertaken. Let me remind you that it was less than two years ago, on
August 15, 1995, that it was announced that we would be managed by a
new company. This announcement set us on a path that has been both difficult
and rewarding. Between August 15, 1995, and January 1, 1996, the
Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation was established, a new contract
with the Department of Energy was written, and management of the Lab
was transferred to the new company. Since
then we have been about the
business of improving the operations of the Lab. This is serious business! It has
required the dedicated efforts of many of you here today. It will require even
more effort on your part in the future. I know that some of you are impatient
and frustrated that it has not gone faster or, in some cases, hasn't gone in
a direction that you believe it should. Fantastic! Continued impatience
and frustration are good signs. They mean that you still care.

What I worry about is not impatience and frustration,
but ignorance and apathy. There is an old joke about the fellow who was
asked what he thought about ignorance and apathy. He replied that he didn't
know
and he didn't care. Well, I do know
and I do care. I hope that you do take the time to know and that you do
care. Ignorance and apathy are real threats. If you don't know and you don't
care, who will? After all, you are the assets of this institution. ORNL continues
to provide many of you with oppor-tunities to work on projects that
are interesting and challenging. This privilege carries with it the burden
of giving good value to the taxpayers who fund our work and to their agents,
our elected and appointed officials in various branches of government.

Having said this, our reengineering efforts are going well. Not as fast
as some of us might wish, but realistically, they are going well.

ORNL Director Alvin Trivelpiece and former Laboratory directors Alvin Weinberg and Herman
Postma show the National Medal of Science plaque awarded years ago to the late Eugene P. Wigner, a
former ORNL research director. Wigner's widow gave the plaque to ORNL, and it now graces a wall in
Wigner Auditorium, which was dedicated in 1996.
Photo by Curtis Boles.

The main objective of the reengineering effort is to enable us
to perform our jobs better. One of the major concerns expressed about
the national labs is that we cost too much. In one sense, this is a
subjective judgment about what constitutes productivity in our kind of
knowledge business. This judgment might be wrong because it does not take
into account the quality of the work. Unfortunately, we cannot
defend ourselves against charges that we cost too much because we cannot
simply and accurately track our costs with a suitable cost accounting
system. Correcting this is not a simple matter, nor will it be cheap, but an
appropriate system will pay for itself in a short
time. With the recent progress on acquiring the software for the
SAP system and the hardware platform to run it, we are on our way to having
the tools we need. This Delta project, as it is now known, is the linchpin of
our reengineering efforts. Without such a new system, it is not clear that we
can meet any of our other reengineering goals or our commitments to
the Department of Energy on cost savings. We now have some 80
duplicative accounting systems at ORNL. This makes it impossible to
understand where costs could be reduced. If we cannot accurately understand
our internal circumstances, how can we hope to prove that we are a
cost-effective alternative to another lab, a university, or industry? The new system will eliminate those
separate systems and permit us to understand our costs. This new system is
essential to our survival.

Reengineering human resources is no less important. I have said
many times that our principal enduring assets are the talents and skills of
the individuals who make up ORNL. We need to have a personnel system that
is fair to all and competitive on a national and international basis. We need
a system that pays for performance and not simply for duration
of employment. We need a system that will make it easy to recruit and retain
a next generation of scientists and engineers to carry out the programs
of the future. I am pleased that the human resources team is doing an
excellent job. You can see just what they've accomplished on the
reengineering home page.

The reengineering team charged with improving the ability of
the scientific and technical staff to get their work done faster, better, and
at less cost to the taxpayer looked at the role of the Plant and
Equipment Division. This team has developed a set of agreements that speak
to improved productivity and recognize the degree to which everyone at
ORNL plays a key role in its ability to survive. This is a unique
agreement, and all the parties are to be congratulated. Again, the
national laboratory that you save may be your own. The other reengineering
projects are making good progress and will lead to improvements in our operations
in due course.

What should we do about the threats to ORNL?

Keep up the good work and don't get distracted by some of the
extraneous activities. Keeping up our scientific and technical productivity
during these uncertain times is one of our best defenses.

Write letters to your sponsors
and tell them that you really appreciate the hard work they do to defend
the programs from which you derive your support. Write your contact at
a site or operations office with the same message.

Make sure that you let everyone you can know that ORNL is alive
and
kicking.

Many of you already do this through your scientific and technical
societies. I hope that the rest of you make sure that the word gets out to your
friends and neighbors in the area about what we do here and why it is important
to the economy of the region. Talk to reporters and the press in the
language they use to communicate with their
readers. That is, please avoid
your usual dedication to technobabble.

Need To Train
New Leaders

Trivelpiece bids farewell to Bob Van Hook, ORNL deputy
director who left the Laboratory in the fall of 1996 to prepare to
become president of Lockheed Martin Energy Systems.
Photograph by Curtis Boles.

Another line of defense has to do with training the next generation
of leaders for ORNL. In that regard, ORNL Deputy Director
Richard Genung has proposed that we start a program called Leadership
ORNL. This program would be similar to Leadership Oak Ridge and
Leadership Knoxville. It will take a selected
group of employees through a several-month sequence, a few hours at a time,
to review various programs and functions of ORNL. This program will
conclude with the final week of our existing
Leadership Development Program. This is a great idea, and Richard
has graciously agreed to lead the effort to develop the Leadership
ORNL program.

Secretary of Energy Peña visited ORNL on May 30, 1997. His
visit lasted only one hour. As a result we weren't able to show him very much.
I hope that he comes back so that we can show him more. But, even though
his stay was brief, I don't think it could have gone any better. Sometimes
it seems as though we don't believe our visitors have a good understanding
of what we do unless we show them everything. Having had
many marathon briefings inflicted on me, I can attest that this strategy
doesn't work. Those of you who didn't get to personally tell Secretary Peña
what
you do should rest assured that each
of your colleagues who did get to brief him did an outstanding job.

Doug Lowndes (right), ORNL corporate fellow, discusses advances in pulsed-laser
deposition
with Charles Townes, Nobel Prize-winning inventor of the maser who was a Distinguished Lecturer in 1996
at ORNL. Looking on is ORNL's Ben Larson. Photograph by Curtis Boles.

Our Initiatives

Just prior to coming to Oak Ridge, Secretary Peña gave the
keynote address at the Knoxville Summit. In his talk he said that he supported
going forward with the National Spallation Neutron Source (NSNS) and that
he looked forward to seeing it in operation at ORNL. I could say a
lot more about this initiative, but that remark by the Secretary was about
as good as it can get. On June 23, 1997, a team of about 60 scientists
and engineers came to ORNL to conduct a review of the Conceptual
Design Report for the NSNS. The objective of the review was to determine if
the proposed approach will work technically, if the facility can be
built as proposed, and if it can be finished within the proposed cost envelope.
The NSNS is the best example of a collaborative project involving
several Department of Energy laboratories that I have ever seen.
Brookhaven, Berkeley, Argonne, and Los Alamos national laboratories are partners
with ORNL in this project. We all hope that the $23 million requested by
the Department for FY 1998 gets approved by the Congress. Even though we
have a justifiable right to be optimistic, you should remember that there are
always strong forces that try to stop projects like the NSNS. This is another
area where the collective and aggressive defense of ORNL is essential.
Anyone
that believes that once a project
is approved it is secure forever should examine the history of
the Superconducting Super Collider.

The NSNS is the best example of a collaborative project involving several
DOE laboratories that I have ever seen.

I wish that some of our other initiatives were in as good shape as
the NSNS. We do not have a solution to our problem of improving our
Mouse House. This will be the focus of some increased attention during the
next year.

We are still working to acquire a multi-teraflops massively
parallel supercomputer. I am optimistic that we will eventually be successful in
some measure, but the path to success is not clear at the moment.

The Knoxville Summit also saw the establishment of a joint University
of Tennessee and ORNL transportation research center. This is off to a
good start.

On the disquieting side, the selection of a
Management and Integration contractor to run the
Environmental Management programs at the former
Oak Ridge K-25 Site (now called the East Tennessee
Technology Park) is likely to result in a reduction
in force at the Laboratory. The magnitude and timing
are still only estimates, but eventually we will have
to deal with some loss of work that had been done by
ORNL staff.

The Knoxville Summit saw the establishment of a joint University
of Tennessee and ORNL transportation research center.

Jeff Christian of ORNL's Buildings Technology Center provides an overview on
the Laboratory's energy-efficiency research to Oak Ridge City Manager Bo McDaniel
(left) and Parker Hardy, president of the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce.

In my remarks this year, I haven't singled out any individual for praise
or recognition. This is deliberate. I wouldn't know how to do so
without
mentioning several hundred
people. The list would include reengineering teams, transition teams, those of
you who were presented with awards and honors, etc. You know who you
are. Without you we wouldn't be making progress on any of our scientific
and technical initiatives, or on our reengineering efforts, or on
program development, or on any of the other projects that will contribute to
our survival. It was a deliberate decision to involve as many of you as possible
in the transition and reengineering teams. I am glad that we did. It is
working well. Each of you has a debt to your
fellow workers for what they are
doing for you. I hope that as this year unfolds we can continue to make
progress toward solving the many problems and challenges that we face. I am proud
of what you have accomplished this year.

Last year I closed with a quote from Sir Isaac Newton about how he
had seen further because he had stood on the shoulders of giants. This year I
am going to close by telling you that the future of ORNL now rests on
our shoulders. You must now become the giants for the next generation.
This means that there is a lot of hard work yet to do. Let's get on with it.

In general, the state of the
Laboratory could be better, but when
I look at the circumstances that many other research and
development institutions are facing, I can only conclude that we are pretty well off.
I am also optimistic about the generally positive climate for the support
for research and development by this administration and Congress. I
can only hope that future budgets reflect the positive statements recognizing
the value of research and development.